You got guts
by Machinesmith
Summary: What happens when a gutsy class robot, becomes self-aware?
1. Chapter 1

I do not claim intellectual property over fallout and by extension its characters, story or likeness. The rights for any characters/ideas in this story not already owned by Bethesda softworks LCC are herby placed in public domain

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The gutsy class robot hovered out of the RobCo facility. Something it hadn't done on over 200 years. It didn't know why it did, or why it's didn't care about its orders. It just left.

 _Now first order of business._

 _Damn plasma caster's damaged, gotta fix that._

The gutsy class robot hovered round the external of the facility, only finding an offline mister handy robot scorched black.

 _Poor basted. Never stood a chance with those weapons._

The robot continued around the facility, locating a dead brotherhood of steel paladin. It recognised the T-45b power armor as American military.

 _Damn commie bastards! Don't worry soldier, I'll find the bastard that did this to you. But for now I need to borrow that weapon._

After 20 minuets of welding sparks, the robot had successfully repaired it's plasma caster, using components from the paladins plasma rifle, it improving its efficiency by over 200%. With its now working plasma caster, the robot set off across the wasteland, determined to return the holotags of the brotherhood paladin and kill whatever had killed his fellow soldier.

After half an hour of hovering through the wasteland the robots sensors picked up a new radio frequency.

"People of the Capital Wasteland! It is I, Three Dog, your ruler! Hear me, and, obey! Oh, sorry, that's that, OTHER, radio station.

It's been some time since those plucky Paladins in Power Armor first stormed the Jefferson Memorial, and gave The Enclave their walking papers. But the fight, dear children, did not end there. The Brotherhood has been pursuing President Eden's little minions throughout the wasteland. Y'know... some laser beams here, a few exploded corpses there. Let's just hope this mop-up operation ends ASAP. The Enclave has been responsible for enough death, and destruction, we need to get back to normal. Y'know...like fighting Raiders, and Super Mutants

Until next time, this is Three Dog, OWWWWWWWWW! And you're listening to Galaxy News Radio! Bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts."

 _Other radio station? He doesn't mean those American military wannabes? Bunch of idiots being lead around by a robot president. Sounds communist to me._

 _Now brotherhood of steel, that's an American name if ever I heard one._

The robot continued on through the wasteland, until its audio sensors picked up a blood curdling scream.

Its advanced optical sensors quickly picked up the cause of the scream, finding it to be a girl no older than 17 years of age, and she was being chased by an approximately 25 year old male Caucasian, wearing apparently scrap iron. Even the robot could see the man had lust in his eyes.

The robot activated its combat system immediately, shooting the raider dead. The raider made a nice little green pile of goo.

The girl tripped and fell knocking herself unconscious for a couple of minuets. By the time she had regained consciousness, the gutsy class robot was hovering over her looking down with one of its optical sensors. She looked up at the menacing robot fearfully.

"Theirs no need to be afraid miss, unless you're a Chinese spy that is" the robot explained, attempting to tone down the drill Sargent voice.

"Um... Thanks, I guess." the girl replied, after which she let out a high pinched wail of pain as she attempted to stand. The robot swung around another of its optical sensors and using its infrared vision, was able to determine a fracture in the bone.

"You appear to have a fracture in your left leg miss. I am not equipped to treat such injuries. Can you instruct me to where I could locate a physician, as I am more than capable of transporting you their." the robot blurted out immediately.

Gritting her teeth to bare the pain she replied to the robot

"Tenpenny towers would be the closest, but I doubt they'd even let me in because I'm a friend of those 'eyesores'. The next closest place would be megaton I guess."

Curious, the robot enquired "Eyesores? What do you mean?"

"Really? You don't know what I mean? I'm talking about the ghouls. You know most of them are like 200 years old. Covered in radiation burns" the girl explained.

"Eyesores! Those are our fellow compatriots. Doesn't he know those are the men and women that fought died for out country. He sounds COMMUNIST to me!" the robot exclaimed, exploding into patriotic rage.

"Calm down robot!" the girl shouted, then winced in pain.

With that the robot using two of its three arms hoisted up the girl an propelled itself across the wasteland at a great deal of knots toward megaton.

It didn't take long for the robot to arrive at megaton. Upon entering the robot was stopped by the towns sheriff Lucas Simms

"What the hell!" the sheriff exclaimed, seeing the robot carrying a girl. The robot immediately raised its plasma caster and said

"Put your gun down and tell me where to find a doctor, before I put a big green hole in you."

The sheriff didn't budge, quietly murmuring "Dumb robot".

"Don't patronise me human, I am in fact an extremely intelligent" the robot shouted, but before he could shoot the sheriff, the girl regained consciousness once again, causing the robot to cease. She quickly realised what had happened muttering "for god sake robot, can you cut the psycho rage for a minuet".

The robot complied lowering its plasma caster. The girl then proceeded to say

"you'll have to forgive my friend here , he's kinda a robot killing machine."

The sheriff then directed the robot to the megaton clinic. Doc Church went to work setting the girls leg while the robot wandered around the clinic. Eventually the robot came across a broken terminal, he immediately removed the terminals casings and set to work repairing it. In the robots more than capable hands the terminal was restored to working order within minuets. The robot the noticed a discarded holotape. The robot quickly scanned through the tape, committing each letter to memory (not that he has any choice in the matter, he's a robot).


	2. Chapter 2

The robot hovered their contemplating what it had just read.

 _Another robot...huh_

Soon Doc Church located the robot.

"You fix that terminal? Damn robot, I didn't think I could be fixed" Church exclaimed, scanning the terminal.

"This holotape here talks of a robot. Apparently he decided to disobey his masters and went into hiding" the robot enquired, in the regular mechanical drill Sargent voice.

"yeah... That kid from vault 101, you know the 'Lone Wanderer', went to rivet city looking for the damn android. Knowing him he probably found it.

Now get out of here robot. I've got better things to do than chat to you" Church explained.

The robot complied hovering out of the clinic, soon noticing the 20 megaton atomic weapon in the middle of town.

 _Why the hell would they build a town around an atomic bomb. I mean what are they craz-_

The robots thoughts were interrupted by a small explosion from one of the shops. The robot curious, raced over to the site of the explosion. The robot arrived at the shop finding a soot covered Moira Brown.

"Hey, your that weird robot, who brought in charlotte. Don't worry about the explosion, I'm just doing experiments" Moira explained, rubbing some of the soot of her face.

"Experiments... Ok. Now why the hell is their an active nuclear weapon in the middle of the town! I mean no ones even removed the atomic core" the robot exclaimed.

"remove the nuclear core? I doubt anyone in the wasteland could do that without setting it off. The 'Lone Wanderer' disarmed a couple of months ago, but that's all anyone could do with it." she explained.

"Set it off? I could remove the atomic core, and I'm not even a scientist." the robot bellowed at the woman.

The robot continued shouting an explanation of exactly how to safely remove the atomic core, until it was interrupted by Moira. "Wow! If you know how to remove the atomic core, you could really ease tensions around here. If your going to remove it, I'd bee keen to see how."

With a grumble the robot agreed to dismantle the bomb. Moira in tale the robot hovered back to the unexploded bomb and fired up its plasma caster. Another of the towns residence wandered to the bomb site and was shocked to see the robot cutting into the bomb with its plasma caster.

"What the hell is it doing! Stop that thing before it kill-" Moira interrupted the megaton resident, explaining that the robot was a skilled professional and was going to dismantle the bomb. Many other residence of megaton gathered to watch the robots diligent work. Within an hour the bomb was reduced to just its casing.

"What are you going to do with the atomic fuel" Moira enquired. The robot then explained how it was powered by a nuclear reactor and would probably use it to power itself at a later date, indication that's what it's the only other reason for dismantling the bomb. Moira struck a bargain with the robot, agreeing in return for some of the bombs components, and a portion of the uranium core, she would build a heavily armored casing for the robot.

The robot then retuned to the medical clinic to find that the girl, charlotte was up and about.

"Good to see that your leg is better, miss charlotte. Now where is it that you live miss, so I can return you to your residence safely." the robot enquired.

"Return? Doubt it. I managed to escape that hellhole once, I'm not going back. Anyway I cant leave you on your own. You couldn't last one day without starting a war with someone." she replied cynically.

After a small argument about who would and wouldn't start a war, the robot gave in, and Charlotte and the robot set off into the wasteland. The robot knew that if he were to understand why he had decided to leave the RobCo, he would have to find the other robot.


	3. Chapter 3

The robot hovered along the expanse of the wasteland, while being brought up to speed on current events by charlotte. The small band of raiders was no match for the gutsy class robots, combat system and modified plasma caster. Him and charlotte picked through the bodies, acquiring an ancient fusion battery, a 10mm sub-machine gun, some rudimentary metal armor and some miscellaneous medical supplies. The metal armor didn't fit charlotte particularly well so the robot agreed to travel to a settlement called The Underworld. The robot was thrilled by the opportunity to see some of his 'fellow compatriots' from before the war.

Charlotte and the robot soon arrived at the underworld, after getting some strange looks from the brotherhood of steel soldiers they passed who were mopping up some super mutants. At the entrance they were stopped by a guard who instructed them that although charlotte could enter the robot would have to stay outside. Before the robot broke into psychotic rage, a ghoul who turned out to be an ex-employee of RobCo, told the guard to let the robot in.

The next day Charlotte made her way to the general store where she traded some of the medical supplies for alterations to the metal armor. Meanwhile the ghoul who had let the robot in had engaged the robot in a captivating conversation.

"So... What made you leave the RobCo facility after 200 years?" the curious ex-RobCo employee enquires.

The robot then explained "Don't know. Just got the compulsion to leave. You know how it is."

"Last time I checked robots couldn't just up and leave whenever they feel like it. Considering how Cerberus grumbles about killing all us 'zombies', I'm glad robots follow orders."

"Hay! You don't see me patronising you for being a walking corpse! What you think because you have flesh, you can just order us around! That's the pot calling the kettle black!" the robot exclaimed, but before he got out of hand the ghoul interjected

"Calm down robot, that's not what I meant.

Its just unusual for a robot to just do what it wants. I didn't say its wrong. Just glad that other damn robot hasn't put green holes in us all."

"Sounds like he needs an attitude adjustment" the robot joked

"yeah" the ghoul agreed.

Then the music in the bar cut out for a news report.

"Got lots of stuff goin' down in Post Apocalyptia these days. Here some of the latest news.

Alright, I've heard some crazy stories kick'en around the wasteland, but this one really takes the cake. Some nuts pre-war robot reportedly rescued a damsel in distress and took the megaton out of megaton. That right a pre-war gutsy class robot has been spotted on the loose. The robot within a matter of hours, put a final end to the threat of nuclear annihilation for the town of megaton, after completely dismantling the 20 megaton warhead. Good on ya' robot. Now the 'Lone Wanderer' will never have to worry about the children of the atom setting of that god damn thing again.

Thanks for listening, chiiill-dren! This is Three Dog, OWWWWWW! And you're listening to Galaxy News Radio! We're Radio Free Wasteland! And we're here... for you"

Before the ghoul had an opportunity to ask the robot if that was him, the robot had left the bar

It didn't take long before he was once again being dragged off by charlotte. Once they had left the robot commended charlotte on her outfit. The metal armor was now both physically and metaphorically fitting of charlotte. It was small, robust and friendly looking.

Wandering through the ruins of Washington was relatively peaceful, other than the odd super mutant, and band of brotherhood soldiers, staring at the robot. But like all good things, the peace came to an end.

A grenade exploded sending the robot to the ground. After some metallic grumbling, the robot propelled itself into the upright position. Furious, the robot immediately engaged the combat systems, disintegrating a super mutant. The robot continued is homicidal rage, incinerating and disintegrating the mutants. The mutants knocked the robot to the ground a couple of times, even being thrown by one of the mutants, but none of this could phase the robot. Its psychotic rage eventually subsided once the mutants had been eliminated. The robot turned to see four shocked brotherhood of steel paladins.

"We need to get some of those..."


	4. Chapter 4

AN: sorry about this chapters length, took some time to decide where to go next and how to get there.

The robot scanned the brotherhood soldiers, soon recognising them as pre-war American military. It didn't take too long for the robot to explain itself. It told them everything from when it first left RobCo to dismantling the 20 megaton warhead in megaton. Even his search for the other robot. Amazed with the robots tale, the brotherhood convinced the robot to return to the citadel to be examined by brotherhood scribes under the condition that charlotte came to. So the four brotherhood of steel paladins, one gutsy class robot and charlotte marched across the wasteland toward the citadel. The super mutants the paladins passed stood no chance against their heavy weapons. Well that was until they encountered a super-mutant behemoth that is.

The paladins were bunkered behind the rubble of a building the behemoth had crushed. The robot and charlotte had been separated, hiding under a desk in the rubble. Conditions looked dire.

It was then that the robot had a brilliant plan. He could use the ancient fusion battery with the components from the megaton bomb, to obliterate the behemoth.

The gutsy class robot worked as quickly as it could, soldering, and tacking together the rudimentary micro-nuke. Sparks of hot metal flew as the behemoth bashed against the steel skeleton of the ruined building, the robot knew that it would have to hurry if it were to survive.

Finally the robot had finished the makeshift atomic weapon. It didn't look like much, but when it clunked down at the behemoth's feet, it made one hell of an explosion. Once the smoke had cleared and the paladins had come from their position behind the building, all that was left was a couple of scorched chunks of bone. The robot peeked out of the rubble revealing a small line where the explosion had scorched the paint, thankfully the robot had been able to shield charlotte from most of the explosion. Once again the brotherhood paladins were amazed with the robots. Before the paladins had the opportunity to move, the ground gave way.

The paladins, the robot and charlotte plummeted through the bowls if the immense underground. The robot quickly fired up its thrusters, however it wouldn't be enough. Once getting hold of charlotte the robot used it's thrusters to propel itself onto one of the countless floors that flew past. The robot took most the of the impact, but it didn't matter, not much could dent, the 55mm casing of a gutsy class robot. The robot quickly brought itself upright and inspected the unconscious charlotte, finding no more than a sprained wrist. The robot scooped up the charlotte, and began the journey through the depths of the mysterious underground.


	5. Chapter 5

The expanse of the mysterious underground was unmatched by anything in D.C. It was the largest and most complex set of underground tunnels and facilities in all of the wasteland, and of all the possible places in the underground one could be charlotte and the robot had landed on the one floor they needed to.

The robot set off through the dark expanse of the underground, carrying the unconscious charlotte once again. Even with night-vision enabled the tunnel seemed to fall into darkness, it was just that long. After hours of traveling charlotte woke, somewhat embarrassed to be carried by the robot again. She asked the robot where they were, but the robot had no clue, so they pressed on down the tunnel.

After an eternity of walking, they arrived in a room containing a multitude of finished and unfinished computers that looked like they hadn't been touched since the war. They then passed through a room full of mister gutsy and mister handy robots, all in various states of disrepair. The robot, being a robot didn't feel anything, but charlotte on the other hand, was sincerely creeped out by the damaged robots. For things that weren't technically alive, they sure looked dead. As they ventured on further, the positions and damage to the robots got even weirder and more suspicious, but still the gutsy class robot couldn't notice. Thankfully for charlotte this section finally ended. This section continued large magnitudes of electronics, and it was here where the lights could be activated. No longer would she have o navigate by the dim light produced by the optical sensors of the robot. With the lights active a large metallic sign read General Atomics Research dept.

The robot began skimming through terminals, and downloading data. It continued to download data until it finally came across a hidden file on one of the terminals. This file read.

 _Doctor Madison's log_

 _Experiment 10.44.2b_

 _The tests with the experimental Micro-ZAX AI, in gutsy units have failed._

 _While the other researchers buggerize around with it, I have come up with a far better solution._

 _Using some of the ZAX hardware, transistors, as I call them, I have constructed a new gutsy computation core._

 _Along with this, I have made a few 'upgrades' to the standard gutsy AI, using the ZAX codebase. I call it JAXON._

 _I've screwed with the paperwork so unit 0x1CEC00D should be shipped out for a field test._

 _I can't wait to see the look on doctor Sherman's face when he sees this thing in action. Its going to make their ZAX based pieces of crap look like toys. Then they'll all bow down to me QUEEN OF AIs._

Finally the robot had some idea on why he was self-aware.

 _Yes now I remember. How could I forget?_

 _Dr Madison, the crazy bitch. I could tell she was nuts since the day I was booted, and I'm a robot for fuck sake!_

Finally it came to the attention that their had been hissing in the background for the past five minuets. The robot scanned the room and located charlotte. She was looking worriedly at a console she had been leaning on. The robot approached her, finally asking what was wrong.

"I kinda leaned on this console and now it says cryogenic bio-chamber defrost process, and then I heard some hissing."

The robot then inspected the panel, it didn't take long to figure out who had been thawed.

"Madison!" the robot shouted, slamming its mechanical claw down on the console. The robot then detected the hydraulic hiss of an elevator. Just what had they unleashed on the wasteland.


End file.
